Quick to recall the tiniest detail on dozens of issues, the Democratic candidate for years suppressed memories of a violent stepfather. To understand his upbringing is to understand the man he is toda

"I REMEMBER THE POLICE COMing and taking him away. That was a pretty spooky deal." Bill Clinton was less than six when his drunken stepfather was arrested for firing a gun during a marital quarrel. But, he says, "I remember it like it was yesterday." That was in the little town of Hope, where Clinton was born. "The neighbors knew about it." Shortly afterward the family moved to Hot Springs, where, Clinton says, "we never had a public incident."

But they did. As a 15-year-old, Clinton gave a sworn deposition against his stepfather: "I was present on March 27, 1959, and...